Adil Aouchiche looks set to make his first start for Portsmouth this weekend

Sunderland loanee Adil Aouchiche is in line for major opportunity to impress when Portsmouth welcome QPR to Fratton Park this weekend.

Aouchiche has made three substitute appearances since completing a loan switch in the latter stages of the January window, but an injury to Pompey talisman Callum Lang could well see him coming into the starting XI this weekend. Lang, who has scored 10 goals for Portsmouth this season, has suffered a torn hamstring and is deemed unlikely to play again this season.

Pompey boss John Mousinho stopped short of confirming that Aouchiche would start moving forward, but said the 22-year-old is in a good place having had time to adapt to the team's system and playing style.

"The reason we brought him to the club was to play games," Mousinho said.

"There’s no doubting Adil’s ability, he’s had a good period of adjustment to see how we want our team to play and our 10s to play and if he plays at the weekend he’s had a really good period. We’ve got other options as well and we’ve spoken about other options, so there’s plenty of competition for that spot. When we brought in Adil we didn’t want to bring in a Callum Mk2. We want to have options and different styles of players.

"So they are different, very different, and we’ve seen that first hand with the games Adil has played for Portsmouth - and against Portsmouth for Sunderland. They are definitely different players."

While Aouchiche will look to bring a creative spark to Portsmouth's bid to beat the drop, Mousinho also believes that he is well placed to replicate Lang's physical output.

"If you look at Adil’s data through the season for the Championship, he’s right up there," Mousinho told The News.

"He’s right up there for distances covered. We had that data going into the Sunderland game [in December] and he was outstanding in terms of projected distances, distances covered, high speed and sprint distances. So that confirmed to me if he was to become available we definitely had to take him, because you get all of the attributes on the ball with Adil - but he does the job off the ball as well.

"We get the data straight after the game pretty much. We have our own data, but there’s a system called Second Spectrum which gives you more of the live data, plus what’s happened after the game for every team.

"Adil’s at Oxford, in terms of projected, was the highest for metres per minute, highest for sprint distance per minute and highest for high-speed per minute. He had the advantage of coming on, but he was by far the highest for those."

Portsmouth look increasingly likely to win their bid to retain their Championship status, having hit a good run of form in recent weeks. They have taken seven points from their last four league fixtures, and now sit seven points clear of the final relegation place as things stand.

Your next Sunderland read: Sunderland make new appointment and confirm revamped coaching structure after Mike Dodds exit